USA TODAY investigations show how potential conflicts make it look as if the Oval Office is for sale: Our view

Leave it to President Trump to take influence peddling to a whole new level in Washington.

There have always been ways to try to gain access to presidents or influence them, typically through huge campaign contributions. Anyone who cares about ethics in government has decried this ugly reality. But never before has the money flowed into a trust that directly benefits the president.

Now, lobbyists, corporations, foreign investors or anyone else looking to curry favor with Trump can go the direct route. They can join one of Trump’s luxury golf clubs where he dines, golfs and holds court on many weekends. Or purchase a condo, penthouse or mansion from the Trump Organization, or make use of the Trump International Hotel just down the street from the White House.

In September, for example, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak made ample use of the Trump International Hotel. While hotel staff would not say whether Najib stayed there, he emerged from the hotel on his way to the White House and returned there at night. Members of his entourage lounged in hotel reception areas. And the hotel has quickly become a Washington power center.

All this is the logical outcome of Trump’s decision to turn his back on precedent and refuse to put his assets in a blind trust, as most recent presidents have done.

Three USA TODAY investigations underscore how many potential conflicts that decision has fostered:

Members of the clubs that Trump has visited most frequently — in Palm Beach, Bedminster, N.J., and Sterling, Va. — include CEOs of defense and technology contractors, lobbyists representing energy companies and foreign governments, and the leader of a pesticide trade group that persuaded the Trump administration not to ban a controversial insecticide. Club initiation fees can exceed $100,000 with thousands more for annual dues, so all paid plenty for the privilege of potential face time with the president, who has made the clubs homes away from home, visiting Bedminster at least 30 times from May through August.

At least five of those Trump club members have been given "senior roles in his administration," according to a USA TODAY review, including two ambassadors. "Never in modern history has a president awarded government posts to people who pay money to his own companies."

Since the president clinched the GOP nomination, 70% of the buyers of Trump properties have been secretive shell companies, known as LLCs, which allow buyers to obscure their identities. That’s more than 17 times the number of secret buyers in the two years before. The sales — ranging from $220,000 to at least $10 million — open the way for those who might want something from government to try to curry favor with their purchases. That sort of thing is easier when purchases are secret.

While there’s nothing illegal about buying property in an LLC or belonging to a posh golf club, it is at the very least unseemly for people — especially those who seek to shape or even make federal policy — to be making payments to companies that add to the president's own substantial wealth.

Like the veiled LLCs, membership lists in Trump’s clubs are secret. Until USA TODAY reporters combed social media and a public website used by golfers to track their handicaps, the public had no idea who belonged to the clubs and what potential conflicts they created.

Finding who is behind the secretive LLCs is almost impossible, so the public could never know who might try to influence the president through purchases.

Now we know something else. Just how much the president's contempt for ethical standards is costing taxpayers. Americans are paying the salaries of 10 Justice Department lawyers and paralegals "to work on lawsuits related to President Trump's private businesses," according to information obtained by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act. The lawyers' salaries range from $133,000 to $185,000 a year.

The president has proudly thumbed his nose at divesting himself of his companies or using a blind trust. In January, announcing the current arrangement, he went even further: "I could actually run my business and run government at the same time. I don't like the way that looks, but I would be able to do that if I wanted to."

Legally, that’s true. The president is not subject to the same ethics rules as Cabinet secretaries. But failing to follow commonsense rules does nothing less than make it look as if the Oval Office is for sale.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.